Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Proving that it is possible to talk out of every orafice and still not be honest, the Preznit and Congress were awarded five big, fat Fs for failure to take adequate steps for security by the 9/11 Commission. (Which had to secure private funding to keep up its watchdog activities, since Congress and Bushie didn't want anyone actually performing oversight on their failure to do any work.)

F's were cited for the lack of an adequate radio band for first responders, poor airline passenger pre-screening, the "burying" of the overall intelligence budget within the defense budget, and coalition standards for terrorist detention.

The report card gave an F to Congress for allocating homeland security funds "without regard for risk, vulnerability, or the consequences for an attack."

Nothing like a little pork with your security preparedness planning.

The NYTimes has more, including specific criticism of the Administration's detainee policies (or lack thereof). Specifically, the commissioners point to the fact that our detainee policies make it even more difficult to forge intelligence and other alliances that are vital in tracking al quaeda and other terror groups -- in the very nations with which strong alliances are necessary for our own security. Well, duh. But there it is...someone please pass this along to the Preznit, because I'm tired of having to repeat it.

With a grand total of 17 Ds and Fs (warning: PDF of entire commission report), do you think we might get some work out of the Administration and/or Congress after their lengthy winter break? Yeah, I didn't think so either.